THE STRAWMAN PARADIGM

“A dysfunctional society has only the strawman to blame.”

Pretty much everything in society at large today is dysfunctional; education, religion, politics to be sure, ethics & morality, health care, the legal system, the airlines, and last but not least financial markets. It all starts with a dumbed down educational system, where progressives have infected the very fabric of a general education in favor of liberal indoctrination; granted, it takes time, and with the 60’s generation of scumbags like Bill & Cankles Clinton, the murdering felon Bill Ayers, and a whole host of others who have corrupted education, little Johnny & Sally can learn valuable skills like 1) transgender climate change, 2) Heather has 2 Mommies, 3) LGBT theory & practice, 4) feminism, 5) white privilege & microaggressions, and the list could go on for pages. Who needs writing skills [racist & sexist], math skills [white privilege], U.S. history [cuz nothing ever repeats], and critical thinking skills [“Obama’s gonna pay for everything”!]?

Just because I know that there are some readers out there who wake up every day at 11 A.M. local time and stumble across the website … you know … extremely tired from the day before when they had to drain the EBT card for food and then stand out in front of a Wal Mart and try and get others to give them cash so they could buy their groceries at 50% off; today I’m giving you a history lesson from which you can actually learn something.

All, and I do mean ALL, totalitarian regimes need 2 things implemented within society to be successful dictators and plunder whatever country they got their eye on [“all for your own good, of course, cuz you’re too stupid to know what’s best for you”!]; 1) they need to control the press, and 2) they need outright tangible control of people. Today, the MSM is nothing more than the media wing of Libtard Nation, hand-in-hand with today’s thought control narrative; listen or read any of them, and they have exactly the same talking points as everyone else, with the exact same “keywords” or “catch phrases” in use on a daily basis … hell, they don’t even try and hide the fact they are nothing but high paid shills. The second thing dictators do is immediately seek control of the public’s availability of health care, and then take away weapons of any kind [“like everything else, it’s for the children”.]; when you do these 2 things, you control the public and there isn’t a damn thing anybody can do about it. “Good thing nobody in this country has ever tried that, huh”?

One of the increasingly modern day Progressive uses of language is to 1) bastardize it so it means nothing more than what anyone wants it to mean, and 2) set up a “strawman premise” so whoever is in charge can refute it and look like a savior, when in fact they are the source of the problem. Obama was an absolute expert at setting up a strawman premise with phrases like, 1) “all reasonable medical professionals agree …”, 2) “every competent economist says …”, and 3) all foreign policy experts agree …” Yea, nice try, however you were the problem. Obama always acted, no matter the year, like he just got put in office yesterday and had nothing to do with the multiple dysfunctional policies he initiated that were utter catastrophes.

As I said yesterday, all of this crap eventually bleeds over into financial markets, where we now hear on a non-stop daily basis the wonders of the FED and their brilliant policy makers fighting the good fight for the American people, all the while fighting deflation, asset bubbles, keeping prices stable, and of course promoting stability. “What utter and complete bat guano! You are the frickin’ problem”! But as long as mountains of CNTRL-P cash is shoved down the pants of special interest groups, Wall Street Greedsters,  politician’s pet projects, and of course the EBT cards still work, don’t expect the strawman to go away anytime soon.  “If it ain’t broke, and the Sheeple act like they are retarded, why fix anything? Pay lip service to whatever … STFU and sit down”! And as every week goes by, it gets harder and harder to separate market moving news from an ever constant stream of “strawman noise”; political, financial, whatever.

Turning to today’s market … here, hours before the open, yesterday still bothers me cuz I feel like the market manipulators were doing their damnedest to do just that to me … and the 100 point sell off in the last 90 minutes amplifies that feeling … according to the financial “talking heads”, it was Brazil’s fault for the early drop, and the 2 week old Comey tape for the rally … really? “Each and every day, they prove once again, like their comrades in the MSM, they are nothing but shills promoting the strawman of “we know everything and can explain it to you cuz you can’t figure it out without us” mantra … sprinkle in some Libtard indoctrination along with a stock quote, and you might as well be sitting in North Korea as the Manchurian Candidate”.

But, don’t ever question the strawman; that gets you the Saul Alinsky treatment of personal and ad hominum attacks; to suggest the strawman is a joke, means you’re a racist, homophobe, bigot, sexist Neanderthal that has no right to life … even though you are right spot on in the analysis … “nothing makes cockroaches madder or sends them scattering, faster than sunlight”!

If you ever want to see what the “blind leading the blind” looks like, go over to ZH and read the latest musings of Bloomberg’s best & brightest; seems our bud Richie Breslow shares some insight from a colleague who says he’s never seen a brokerage house analyst share a “really good trade idea” … of course not; brokerage house recommendations are for “Muppets” … analysts are the strawman for losses. “How many years [Ok, days maybe] you been in this biz”? NEWS FLASH: There’s up & there’s down; get on a side and try and ride it; everything else is bullshit. “Why do you think some of the dumbest people on earth who were successful traders became successful? Cuz of brains? … Even they can figure out buying at 1 and selling at 3 means they don’t have to be in the Pudding Business and schlep to work like you do”. Or, you can write for Bloomberg and produce “parakeet cage paper” for Muppets; make your choice, choose a side.

We’re about an hour from the open, and scanning the skyline, it looks like this could be a very quiet Friday … a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants kind of day … still, “shoes” have been dropping all week, why stop today? … I still maintain, though, this market is not out of trouble until we get a New York open at 9:30 that attempts to go lower and is rejected; that sets up a potential powerful afternoon rally.

Ok, stocks open and then go higher … WTF else is new? … is there another alternative I’m not thinking of here? … never ending institutional “Chipmunks” who’ve never seen a stock price they didn’t like … unbelievable the herd mentality these guys have. “But … but … Brazil, what about the chaos there, huh?” That “strawman” only matters Skippy, when prices are going down and we need you to sell into a falling market; prices are going up now, so Brazil doesn’t matter … does that make sense? “Great, come again soon Ok”? Forty-five minutes in and it feels like you can’t get a group of 3 downticks to save your life … until that is I get long. First trade of the day directly below sees a scalp simply because, yet again the SP500 rallies and the Dow30 sits and doesn’t do Mr. Jack Squat … I know how this story ends if I don’t take the chump change and exit stage left.

 

And, sure enough, all it takes is for the SP500 to come off a tick or two and it’s tapioca the Dow30 10 points as late longs hit the sell button [“Guys, you’re just a tad late”.] Then, suck ‘em back in with a 30 point 2 minute blast up … yea, nothing says a “functioning market” better than that, cuz “fun-durr-mentals”.

And cuz that bear market we just experienced for one day was so nasty and upset some financial Snowflakes with portfolios, I see Fed Pie Hole Bullard is out and about spewing on about how the FED screwed up and maybe there won’t be a June rate hike and maybe later more QE; “seriously, you can’t make shit like this up … sent out by Yellen Central Casting to calm the waters and get everybody buying stocks again … cuz, shut up and buy, OK”?

Noon in New York and there have been “zero, zip, zilch, nada” breaks of any kind since the open… longest down move lasted 3 M1 candles … if this stuff doesn’t break pretty soon, we could see a classic “squeeze the shorts” on a Friday close, that has the potential to be extremely powerful as people panic into the close to get out at any price if they are short from lower levels. We’re about 15 minutes from the infamous “Chicago Noon Hour”, where prices need to retrace or stay steady without making a new high for the day between 11:30 – 13:00 Chicago time, in order to see a real barn burner close. If prices do make a new high in this 90 minute period, the probability is about 90% it won’t be there at the close … just sayin’. “Did everybody enjoy that 36 hour bear market”?

Mid afternoon, and the whole day is an absolute mess with a higher open and then higher prices with no breaks … finally did get a little one, but even if you took it, it wasn’t worth anything 7 minutes later. Off of the high during the Chicago Noon hour [which is not good, and is the reason I did not take the signal cuz where is it gonna go? … At this time of day, I don’t want a scalp trade cuz if the signal isn’t good, how do I recover?] it’s been a “chopfest” with no trade flow at all; it’s so bad, even on the M1 candlesticks there are gaps between candlesticks due to lack of any price quote or trade … and then boom, it moves. To give you an idea, we just had a tortuous move up to test the high of the day, and then in 90 seconds it’s 15 lower, back where it started 17 minutes earlier; this isn’t trading, it’s Russian Roulette. [“Somebody quick … email the WaPo & NYT and tell them we finally have a “Russian connection” to something”.]

This has been a really strange week … straight down to straight up, with very little in between … and now, here on a Friday that’s been straight up all frickin’ day with “zip, zero, zilch, nada” breaks, we get the “flush the toilet” as the Dow30 goes down from a marginal new high about 50 points in 5 minutes; this could be bought earlier, but not now. Remember, breaks after 2 P.M. cannot be bought unless you are looking for trouble … and if you bought this you found it late on a Friday. I want no part of this clusterfark.

And, as much as this bat guano action does nothing for my blood pressure or disposition, looking at the bigger picture, the Dow30 is down for the week [roughly -0.4%]; the PAMM is up for the week [roughly + 0.2%]; everything proceeding as planned. The dirty little secret is Dow30 ETF’s and/or index funds carry overnight risk [as we saw this week] and losses from down days; the PAMM has no overnight risk. From where I’m sittin’, even with crappy action days, the PAMM is the clear winner.

Here with half an hour to go, once again the wisdom of not buying breaks after 2 P.M. kicks in; it simply doesn’t matter the reason. Seriously, you can expect the WaPo & NYT to publish smear pieces on every government official, from anonymous sources of course, until Libtards return to power, which hopefully is never. They lie, they deceive with half-truths, they have no shame or standards, their aim is purely to promote a liberal fascist, globalist, socialist agenda no matter the consequences … so expect it. As I said yesterday, it’s a shifting sands narrative, where once something is discredited and proven a lie, they simply move on to the next one the next day, hoping beyond hope something sticks … truly F-ing pathetic, but that’s liberals and progressives cuz nothing matters but power and the control of money.

PAMM/MAMM Spreadsheet directly below.

 

Time for the beach … the dog and I are outta here … until Monday.

Have a great weekend everybody!

-vegas

OUR TURNKEY FOREX  “PAMM/MAM”  IS NOW OPEN AND OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM MANAGED MONEY PROGRAM” IN “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN RIGHT HAND COLUMN FOR DETAILS [VIEW ONLINE AND/OR DOWNLOAD] AND START YOUR JOURNEY FROM WHERE YOU ARE AT TO “ESCAPE TO SUCCESS”!